My school teaches Stav and I have been a student of Stav for fifteen years and teaching it for quite a number of those years. The past ten in Oxford and by the time you read this I will have moved to Somerset and will be establishing a local school there. My class in Oxford will have been taken over by one of my senior students and I will return regularly to teach, support and encourage the group there.
Hands up all those readers who know about Stav? Thought so. Most of you who are reading this are seeking to set up or develop Karate schools or similarly well known styles and systems which have Asian origins. You may complain about the difficulties of finding enough students and keeping them interested but at least anyone who isn't visiting from Mars or has just crawled out of a cave after half a century will know what you are talking about. Movies and celebrities have kept the popular martial arts in the public's mind for the best part of half a century now.
But spare a thought for someone who is teaching an art which of which the public has no awareness. Not that I am complaining. I had many years of Martial arts experience before I met my Stav teacher and realised that this was the art for me. I do have students who have been loyal to me for many years and a couple of them now teach their own students. I have also been both to the USA and Germany on numerous occasions to teach but always the numbers of those attending are small, usually to the point of the trip barely breaking even. My contacts try to encourage people to come but the response all too often is "Stav? Never heard of it, I'll stick with what I know thanks." I am simply grateful that there are at least some people with the ability to recognise the value of something for themselves and not simply because it is fashionable.
A little bit of history now. Stav is probably the only authentic European body, mind and spirit training system which has been passed down complete to the present day. Stav is part of the family tradition of the Hafskjold clan who have lived in the same part of Norway since the 6th century. Stav literally means the knowledge of the rune staves which have a similar part to play in European culture as the I Ching does in Chinese. But, just as China is rapidly losing its traditional ways as it rushes to compete in the modern world so the Hafskjold family came close to losing theirs. The only member of his generation who recognised the value of his family's tradition and was prepared to take the trouble to learn it from his Grandfather and elder uncles was Ivar Hafskjold. Ivar served in the Norwegian Special Forces as a young adult and then went to Japan in the late seventies to study Japanese weapon arts. This is quite a story in itself but suffice it to say he achieved the level of 4th Dan in Jo and Ken Jutsu before coming back to Europe and settling in the UK.
The basis of Stav training is the practice of the sixteen stances. These are posture, breath and meditation exercises which look a little like a short and simple tai chi form. There is a basic version with simple in and out breathing and three more advanced versions using chants to enhance their effect on body and mind. All students of Stav would be expected to know and regularly practise the stances. These provide a very effective health improvement and relaxation practise, even for those who have no interest in martial training as such. (The stances can be seen as a European alternative to Yoga or Chi Gung training.) The basis for martial training is working with the web and for this a staff is extremely helpful because it gives the body feedback on the lines that are being used. Correct use of the web refers to correct alignment of the body internally, externally and in relation to the environment and opponents. The application of Stav as a martial art depends upon using the five principles. These can be seen as roles in a situation and although I will expand considerably on this in future articles, very briefly the principles teach how to act in any given situation according to one's role within it. The basic martial training often involves exercises and drills with the staff. A variety of weapons are trained with including sword, axe and spear; these provide further experience of working with the web and developing an understanding of the principles. It is also fun and makes for good demonstrations. Once you have an understanding of the web and applications of the five principles then Stav can be used as a basis for very effective self defence training.
Ivar was interviewed in the now defunct magazine 'Fighting Arts International' in which he described both his experiences in Japan and his family tradition. I read the interview, contacted Ivar and became his personal student. I trained with him for four years in East Yorkshire before moving to Oxford in 1996 where I began teaching my own students. A few other people also trained with Ivar at about the same time and they have taken Stav in their own directions in a similar way that different styles of Karate have developed from the same root system.
Over the past fifteen years I have been well taught and have developed a good system for teaching Stav myself with the help of my students. It has often been a struggle, mainly because of the lack of recognition and thus the small numbers of students who can be persuaded to support classes and courses. This should all be about to change, within the next year Stav should be featured in a mainstream movie and a professionally made DVD made available. So the purpose of this will be to show how it is possible to go from being the world's least successful martial arts school to, well a more successful one. Along the way I will explain what Stav is, the principles it is based on and how it can be taught, any suggestions from readers with more successful schools on how to cope with this anticipated success will be gratefully received and considered.
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